I agree completely that the conflict in Iraq is senseless and has no good outcome. Osame Bin Lauden's network has insurgent tentacles throughout every terrorist organization and every angry fanatic in the middle east, every country too. We can't bomb or shell our way out of this one. And we bombed the wrong country for imaginary reasons. We can't win this war because the enemy is invisible. Even if we get Bin Lauden, the cause itself will attract others. And we have lost the respect of the entire world with the way we betrayed our own ideals in this conflict. We defy human rights agendas. We restrict and take away freedom. We ourselves are engaged in a war of oppression. These insurgents come from the oppressed classes themselves. We are stepping into oppression and siding with opporessors to oppress more, in a culture with values and conflicts older than we are as a nation. Its like asking a kindergartner to mediate a custody dispute. We are useless in the middle east, except through the UN.

That is a political perspective and I am an American mother. My issue is more personal. I want my sons to be free to fight for this country in fair conflicts. Soldiers don't choose conflicts; their leaders do. Soldiers take orders. Soldiers don't choose how to fight or imprison either. Leaders do.

This war is destroying our own American children and our leaders won't let US be heard. They hide behind propaganda and rhetoric and supporting the troups. Of course we mothers of young people support the troups and we don't make choices for our children. I can't tell my son not to be a marine. I can't tell him fighting fair fights to defend our nation and protect freedom is wrong. I can't even demonstrate and invalidate the lives being put at risk by these leaders. Yet I feel the pressure of time personally. My son's best friend and he want to elist in the marines in a year, as buddies, as heros in the making. I see other mothers already suffering with their own children dying, at risk for dying, or dying on the inside from being forced to violate the human rights of human beings in ways that create lifetime scars for generations to come.

If I believed my son could prevent another 9/11 by dying in a foreign desert, I would respect the man he wants to be and support it. But this war will attract another 9/11, not prevent it. We are creating fuel for these revolutionary insurgents with every battle fought and dollar spent and manipulation exerted to oppress them and their cause. And we are sacrificing our youth, your young people, to do it, based on stupid leadership decisions and international policies of funding aggression, raping resources of others, making money from misery, manipulating the entire world for our own gain.

This is a hyperlocal blog here. We have hyperlocal kids facing post traumatic stress and it dehumanizing effects, death, torture, and permanently maiming crippling injury. Is it worth it for this cause? Hell no. We have no cause we can win and this is not a war we should be fighting. Our own capitolistic interests in oil and the middle east are what brought 9/11 down on our heads. Also the gulf war. We, as Americans, don't let other countries come in here and reset our politics and causes and tell us they know more about what we need than we do. Why do we think we can do this to other nations?

9/11 rocked me to the core, along with this whole nation. But I blame our own leadership for the last half century or more for the twin towers and all the people that died. I blame our own fanatic crusades politically and culturally and religiously. We had a huge legacy in founding the very organization to deal with the middle east, the UN. But no, we have to run in ahead of them, take over and pretend we are so superior to the rest of the world. I remember the beginning of the Gulf war well. Most of the early casualties were friendly fire! And what did the gulf war accomplish that the UN wasn't trying to do? Get Hussein to stand down and leave Kuwait alone? We did that and left him in power. Our leadership set the stage for 9/11 and this war, back then.

We need to transform our leadership in this country and the bounds of executive privilege. We need to live by our own ideals or sacrifice them altogether. We need to protect our own young, not from their choices, but from ourselves and our false, unenlightened leadership. We particularly need to protect ourselves from executive privlege and the ability of one man to paint a big fat target on our cities.

OK I am off my soap box. I want my son's life and choices to mean something to us, to him, and to our nation. He still has American ideals. As his mother, I am part of the reason for that, and I can't change him now anyhow. Everyone should know what they stand for and some will always be ready to die for what they believe. None of us agree on all issues.

If we focus on the hyperlocal issue of the safety of Olympia children from fighting false wars for false beliefs and attracting terrorists to our country, we will start finding solutions. but we need more mothers in politics. And men who have military experience and sons. Bush is none of those. That is why Bush is so willing to risk my sons and my daughter. Bush is also patriarchal and his daughter didn't sign up to fight. Their daddy taught them not to, not a woman's place I'm sure. Bush has no hands on experience in combat, in the trenches, on the ground. It's easier to drop bombs when you haven't been underneath them. Bush has no wisdom of any kind for this country but executive privlege gives him a lot of choices. I would vote for a man like McCane, a former POW from another senseless conflict. He has the right credentials to straighten this out. But Bush? Or his father or brother? No way. We need a real General or a mother to extricate us from this one before destroy an entire generation, as Vietnam damaged so many of us.

Just my opinionated view on this one. I admitted my own bias but the innocents I protect first are the ones I raised. They are very much at risk. We all are. But mothers put their children first.

"Our own capitolistic interests in oil and the middle east"

This is actually an area I've been thinking about for a while.

Should we start thinking about petroleum as a national security issue?

CBSNews ran a story a month or so ago about how gas prices are impacting farming, and one farmer (who was very articulate) made it clear that he believed access to petroleum was of national security.

His main point was that if domestic farmers continue to pay a high-price for gasoline, we're going to see a decline in our own domestic food production (which would make us more dependent upon foreign food).

I haven't come down either way, but one thing that has put this country at an advantage over others is our ability to largely produce food for our own population without behind held hostage by foreign governments.

Basically, he was advocating military forces to be used to maintain access to petroleum (similar to how a group would have taken control of water in order to ensure their society would not be at the mercy of another).

It is not too late to change our thinking.  For many years our economy ran on whale oil.  The whales were gone and we went onto fossil fuels.  The era of fossil fuels has actually died like the whales but people are not paying attention.  Back in the 70's we should have begun moving BEYOND oil.  Old technology,old rules, same old problems.  We have some incredible minds in this world, the task of fueling an economy with something other than oil is within our grasp.  Surely the new technologies will change our economies and perhaps make paupers out of billionaires but I'm willing to go down that path.  When we look at the Enron debacle we have an interesting lesson to learn.  It is not about greed, that is too easy.  The lesson is about manipulating markets and making money from not even selling a product.  Billions were made by Enron not by producing a gallon of oil and selling it at a market price.  Enron made their money by manipulating prices.  That is no foundation for an economy.  Supply and demand works for me.  Manipulating supply and demand and paper profits are obscene.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

Everyone in the midwest has high hopes that the Indy 500 this year will make more popular use of alternative fuels. Yes it is possible. No we don't have the right to plunder resources abroad or wages wars to gain the rights to do so. We held firm our right to refuse port management to Dubai.

Perhaps the government could use the money spent fueling Strykers to give to reduce prices for farmers and their equipment. Seems reasonable to me.